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Much of ancient Greek philosophy and science reached us through Byzantine scribes, who kept copying the old texts by hand in Constantinople for more than a thousand years. Before and after the city fell in 1453, Greek scholars carried many of these manuscripts to Italy.

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Parchment and papyrus decay, so an ancient text survived only if someone kept making fresh copies. In the 9th and 10th centuries Byzantine scribes adopted a smaller, joined-up handwriting called minuscule and recopied the classics in it. Few of the older manuscripts were kept, so for many ancient authors the oldest surviving copy dates from this period. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, summarised 279 books he had read; almost half are now lost, so for many of them his notes are our main record. His pupil Arethas, later archbishop of Caesarea, today's Kayseri, had manuscripts copied that preserve works by Plato and Marcus Aurelius; his Plato is now in Oxford's Bodleian Library. The 10th-century Suda, an encyclopaedia of some 30,000 entries, also quotes many lost sources. This revival of learning is known as the Macedonian Renaissance, after the ruling dynasty.

Türkçe oku
Antik Yunan felsefesinin ve biliminin büyük bölümü bize Bizanslı yazıcılar sayesinde ulaştı. Bu yazıcılar eski metinleri bin yılı aşkın bir süre Konstantinopolis'te, yani bugünkü İstanbul'da, elle kopyaladı. Yunan bilginler bu el yazmalarının birçoğunu, şehir 1453'te Osmanlıların eline geçmeden önce ve sonra İtalya'ya götürdü.

Parşömen ve papirüs zamanla çürür; bu yüzden eski bir metin ancak tekrar tekrar kopyalandıkça günümüze ulaşabildi. 9. ve 10. yüzyıllarda Bizanslı yazıcılar “minüskül” denen daha küçük, bitişik bir el yazısına geçti ve klasik eserleri bu yazıyla yeniden kopyaladı. Eski yazmaların pek azı saklandığı için birçok antik yazarın bugün elimizdeki en eski nüshası bu döneme aittir. Konstantinopolis Patriği Fotios, okuduğu 279 kitabın özetini çıkarmıştı. Bu kitapların neredeyse yarısı bugün kayıp; birçoğunu ancak onun notlarından tanıyoruz. Öğrencisi Aretas sonradan Kayseri başpiskoposu oldu. Onun yaptırdığı kopyalar arasında Platon'un ve Marcus Aurelius'un eserlerini içeren yazmalar vardır; Aretas'ın Platon yazması bugün Oxford'daki Bodleian Kütüphanesi'nde korunuyor. 10. yüzyılda derlenen, 30.000 kadar maddelik Bizans ansiklopedisi Suda da kaybolmuş birçok kaynaktan alıntı yapar. Bu bilgi canlanmasına, dönemin hükümdar hanedanından ötürü “Makedon Rönesansı” denir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Macedonian Renaissance
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